


il y a tellement de choses que je ne comprendrai jamais

by feather_cadence



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Recovery One, and thats it!, sometimes a friendship is just two people with trauma talking over a radio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feather_cadence/pseuds/feather_cadence
Summary: It's late, and Agent Washington - or Recovery One, as he's called now - has had a long day. When Command, who he used to know as 479er, starts an unexpected conversation, he doesn't quite know what to do.But it's better than nothing.
Relationships: agent washington & 479er
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	il y a tellement de choses que je ne comprendrai jamais

**Author's Note:**

> look i just rewatched recovery one and im upset about wash and im upset about every conversation he has with command bc that's just 479er!! he knows her!! so here's some Thoughts about that. 479er wherever u r hope ur doing well love u
> 
> tw for dissociation, paranoia, and mention of gunshot wounds

The base is long empty, and the back room is quiet.

Wash leans back against the crates stacked against one wall and takes a long breath out. Quiet and empty. Not much, but he feels safe enough to take off his helmet, to unlatch his armor’s heavy chestplate and set it on the ground next to him, exposing the three neat bullet holes in his shoulder to the air. He hisses out a breath, and tilts his head to look at the wounds.

“That could have gone better,” he mutters, to absolutely no one.

The radio still in his ear crackles to life. “Recovery one, is the objective complete?”

Wash is tempted to roll his eyes, but he’s tired and it’s not as if anyone would see it anyways. “Confirmed,” he says. He knows just how exhausted he sounds. “Both targets down and their armor has been disposed of.”

The targets in question were two Freelancer agents who had run off with their equipment - Michigan and Minnesota. Command had ordered him to destroy their equipment - and in this case, that meant killing them. Wash had met Michigan a few times. She was funny, nearly laid-back, like the stress of the program didn’t quite get to her. She had always spoken highly of Minnesota.

“Hold for further instructions, Recovery,” Command said.

“Holding.” Wash pulled his last pack of medgel out of one of the containers on his armor, and applied it to the three circular wounds on his shoulder. They would get the bullets out when he got back to base, but he didn’t know when that would be, when they would next call him back. For now, he just had to stop the bleeding.

The pain was a dull throb, something that barely registered, distant and disconnected. His connection to his body was tenuous on a good day, nonexistent when he was as tired as he was. Registering pain was a low priority when there were more important things to think about.

Like the next mission. The radio buzzed again. “Recovery, your vital signs show that you’re injured. Do you need evac?”

Wash’s eyebrows furrowed. Was his injury that bad? He knew generally how to recognize if he was in real danger without registering pain, and he didn’t think this was urgent. The bleeding was already stopping. “Negative, Command. I’m applying first aid now.”

There’s an uncertain noise from the other end of the radio, and Wash furrows his brow even further. Command always spoke levelly, seeming calm and mildly bored, perfectly emotionless. Nothing like the way she had whooped and hollered when they had called her 479er and she had just finished another set of barrel rolls that had caused Carolina to shout at her to stop.

“Command?” he asks, uncertain himself.

There’s a long, long pause from the other end of the radio, long enough that Wash almost thinks that the communication channel has been closed, but the static still hums in his ear.

“Wash?” Command says eventually. “Do you know what time it is?”

Wash closes his eyes, leans his head back. “No,” he says simply. He doesn’t quite know what Command is doing, and that makes him uneasy. He doesn’t quite want to elaborate.

“Three AM, where I am,” she says, quieter than before. “My display says you’re at 1 am.”

Wash doesn’t respond.

Command sighs. “What I’m saying is that I’m the last one in here. In...Command HQ, or whatever. My boss is gone, but I had to stay to keep an eye on you.”

“Sorry to be such an inconvenience,” Wash says, crueler than necessary.

“You know that’s not what I mean. I mean that no one is listening.” She pauses again. “Wash, are you...doing alright?”

Wash freezes. He feels suddenly like if he opens his eyes, he’ll see security cameras on every wall, glass lenses bulging as they swivel to focus on him. The Counselor on the other side, waiting for him to say something wrong. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Other than the bullets in my shoulder, you mean?”

Command huffs out a crude imitation of a laugh. “Yeah. Other than that. Just...it’s been a couple missions in a row now, and you sound tired.”

The same feeling of being watched creeps along his spine. He’ll have to hide that better, next time. “Mm. Sure.”

Command is silent for a moment, and there’s a new fear - that the radio will click off, and she’ll be gone. Wash realizes suddenly that it’s been days or weeks since he’s talked to anyone other than a long list of people who ended up dead soon after and feels the sudden need to cling onto this conversation, as childish as it seems.

“You didn’t pass out from blood loss on me Wash, did you?” Command says, suddenly, an edge of humor in her voice.

“No, not yet,” he replies. He pauses for a moment, weighing the two fears against each other. He blinks his eyes open and looks at the smooth grey concrete of the ceiling. This was only a storeroom. There aren’t any cameras in here. “Command - Ash - you ever miss being a pilot?”

“Every fucking day, Wash. Every fucking day.” The weight in her voice is impossible to ignore. “That’s not something you can forget, once you’ve done it. What about you? Do you miss it?”

Wash tries, for about three seconds, to remember anything about Freelancer. Memories are far too complicated - like looking for a needle in a haystack, but if the hay were alive and mildly evil. Trying to remember one thing leads to a half dozen memories playing at once, overlaid and hyper-realistic, a palimpsest of two lives, two sets of memories wound around each other too tightly. He shakes his head forcefully, and tries not to scratch at the still-new scars on the back of his neck.

“I don’t think I do,” he says, voice flat.

She hums. “Yeah, I can see why.” 

The hum from the radio is the only sound in the dark room, the only sound in the whole base. He wonders how long ago it was abandoned, this squat concrete building, hunched in an odd, sparse forest. He wonders how long it will take until the delicate purple and blue ferns outside sink their roots into the concrete walls, pull them down and turn them into soil.

“Weird that it’s so late for both of us,” Wash says. He still can’t work the uncertainty out of his voice, or the exhaustion. He wonders if the fear is audible just the same. “You’re what - seven star systems from here?”

“Nine,” she corrects. “They explained the way keeping time works in fucking space in basic training, but I don’t remember anymore.”

Wash laughs and the sound is unnatural, like it’s been dragged out of him. “Me neither.”

“You should get some rest, Wash,” she says. Her voice is gentle, genuine. It’s a tone Wash hasn’t heard in a while. “I’m sure they’ll have some other bullshit for you to do tomorrow, and you did get shot.”

“Right,” he says, humming vaguely as he thinks. She’s right - he’s tired enough that he could fall asleep right here, half in his armor on a concrete floor. “They tell you where they’re gonna send me?”

Command scoffs. “Sorry. They don’t tell me shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I expected.”

She pauses for a moment. “Look -” she says, then pauses again. “Wash, once this place is full again, I’ll have to go back to just being Command. I can’t - I need this job, so I have to do what they fucking tell me, but I’m still here. You know. If you need.”

“Right,” says Wash again, not sure of what else there is to say. “Right.”

Before Project Freelancer, before Epsilon, Wash had never really known 479er well. There were a few long flights where they had ended up chatting in the cockpit, probably because the twins were arguing in the bay. Wash had always liked here - she was intense but had a good sense of humor, she loved talking about her family. They hadn’t been friends, but everything that happened meant that didn’t matter. 

She was there, at least.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Command says. “Don’t bleed out overnight or anything stupid like that, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” Wash says, and he finds that there’s a ghost of a smile on his face. 

There’s a pause. “Command, signing off,” she says, and the buzz in his ear goes dead. In it’s absence, the silence of the room presses closer.

Wash sighs, and shifts forward to grab his chestplate and lock it back in place. Exhaustion seeps back into his chest, makes his arms feel heavy. He fits his helmet on, and leans back against the boxes again. The base is empty, he knows. He’s safe. His HUD reassures him that the bleeding stopped a long time ago, that he’ll be fine until the next time he can get back to base.

He’s safe. He can sleep.

He has to repeat this to himself more times than he can count before actually drifting off, wondering what it must feel like to be a pilot trapped on the ground when the whole sky is right there above you.

Somehow, the feeling is familiar.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first time in years that ive written anything fr rvb or halo so apologies for any mistakes abt world or terminology or shit lmao i promise ill actually do some research before my next rvb fic
> 
> if you're able, please donate and sign the petitions found here:  
> https://saytheirnames.carrd.co/


End file.
